Adjusting the mizzen shrouds in Oban. |
I went to bed last night at 10:30 and it was still light
outside. For whatever reason I didn’t expect it to be so light for so long in
Scotland. In reality though, we’re only 4 degrees of latitude south of
Stockholm, so I really should have expected it.
Arcturus is in
Oban, Scotland today, roughly 56º North. After three weeks at home in
Pennsylvania weathering 100º heat and fantastic thunderstorms (my uncle Scott
lost a total of 12 trees in his front yard over the past three or four weeks),
we’re happy to be back in the north wearing wool socks and ski hats. And on the
really warm days jeans and a t-shirt are acceptable walking around town.
Mia and I spent the better part of two hours this morning
trying to decide what to do with the boat over the next five weeks. I bought a
Lonely Planet Scotland book yesterday
to get some info on Edinburgh and some of the places we’re going (the pilot
books we’re using are really just sailing directions, definitely not a cruising
guide, so it’s difficult to get the feel for
a place by reading them), and it ended up just confusing me. There is so much cool stuff to see and do here.
We had decided as of yesterday to go straight for the canal and get on the way
to Sweden, trying to make it to the west coast as quickly as possible and use
up the rest of our time over there. But at the pub last night I started reading
about the west coast of Scotland, kept thinking how one day I want to see these
places and then remembering that I’m right
here, now. I just have to go there.
So we agonized over what to do. Both Mia and I are good at
making ‘gut’ decisions, but in this case, I couldn’t feel it. On top of it all,
we had originally planned to go to Shetland, have an article to write about it in
fact, so that threw another monkey wrench into the whole thing. Shetland, from
my very brief research of it, has over 8000 years of history behind it, is one
of the first Viking outposts this side of Norway and Sweden, and is almost too
irresistible to pass by. It’s north of 60º north, higher up than Stockholm, and
a formidable challenge just getting to (in fact, if you went solely on the
advice of the sailing directions, it’s a formidable challenge getting anywhere in Scotland. If you took them
at face value, you’d never leave the dock. I have to remind myself that we have crossed the Atlantic twice now,
that we are quite capable of piloting
a sailing boat).
As for today, we’re about to enjoy some breakfast on the
boat (I’m in the midst of making bread – the dough is currently rising in the oven
as I write), and then we’re heading a mere 12 miles up the coast to visit a
friend who keeps his boat nearby. It’s a replica of Joshua Slocum’s Spray, and I expect it to be very cool.
In the end, we did finally make a decision (subject to
change, of course. Actually, that is one of the single best things about
travelling by sailing boat – decisions can
change on the fly, and you don’t have to stick to a plan, you’d be foolish to).
By tomorrow morning we hope to be in the canal, and on Wednesday we’re heading
down to Edinburgh with my dad to spend a day and a night exploring the city and
seeing him off to the airport on Thursday. We’ll return to the boat and make
our way to Inverness, where we’ll pick up some charts and stage for the longish
sail up to Lerwick, the main town on Main Island (it’s actually called that) in
Shetland. We’re having a go at it, making a little adventure out of it and a
mission to take some photos and write that article. We may get back to the west
coast of Scotland one day, but it could be a long while until we make it to
Shetland, so I’m declaring it a personal challenge, a little voyage of
discovery and a real jaunt off the beaten path. We’ll use the time in the canal
to rest up and get ready for some real offshore sailing (and look for the Loch
Ness monster on the way), and then it’s north north north.
No comments:
Post a Comment